I retired in 2012 from the corporate world after 25 years with one of America's largest life insurance companies, most of it as a front-line manager and Communications and Marketing executive. Before that was a journalist for a decade, mostly as an editor and writer with Honolulu magazine. Have long been interested as a practitioner in the subject of management, both good and bad, effective and ineffective, what works and what doesn't. Founder and principal of Howling Wolf Management Training, LLC. You can follow me on Forbes, Facebook and Twitter, and I have a blog, "Mind of the Manager," at PsychologyToday.com.

A Quiet Person's Guide To Effective Public Speaking

Three things I can say with certainty about public speaking: 1) Most normal people start off fearing it (slightly preferable to losing a limb). 2) It’s one of the most valuable business/career skills you’ll ever have. And 3) it’s a skill that most definitely canbe learned.

Of the universe of outstanding public speakers and presenters, some of them are just born that way; give them a stage and microphone and they can talk a dog off a meat wagon, as the saying goes. The other 99% of us, however, have to work at it.

Fortunately, the work isn’t that hard and can be extremely rewarding, assuming you’re motivated to improve, which I suspect you are, or you wouldn’t be reading this article.

Full disclosure: There are a lot of ways to skin this cat. There are a legion of companies out there – many excellent – who teach public speaking to people all the time. I’m not one of them. I’m just a quiet person by nature who, over time, gained a functional knowledge of speaking and presenting because I realized it would be helpful (indeed essential) to my career. So what I’m not passing along is a system that can work for everyone, but simply four insights – nothing profound or difficult – that proved valuable to me. And I believe can be of value to others.

1) Watch yourself on video. I first did this for five minutes many years ago at a presentations seminar given by my employer, and it was the best five minutes of my time I ever invested. It wasn’t pretty. On video I could see right away what I needed to improve. I was technically proficient in that I knew what I was talking about (in this case it was advertising), but I needed to be far more animated, emotive, engaging. The video was a clear, if unforgiving, roadmap, showing me quickly where I needed to go.

2) Find your own style that you’re comfortable with. Know who you are, and what your strengths and weaknesses are. Being soft-spoken and understated by nature, I was never going to be a charismatic speaker who would enthrall thousands with ‘fire and brimstone’ emotion. But that was no excuse to be boring. Two things I could do reasonably effectively was use dry humor and tell stories. Those were natural aspects of my personality that could be integrated. That’s a great thing about speaking and presenting - there’s no inherently right way to do it. You can be charismatic, motivational, educational, entertaining, informative, low-key, professorial – you name it – whatever works best for your personality. Find the suit that most comfortably fits your skin.

3) Pick out one person in the audience and pretend you’re having a conversation with him or her. This is by no means an original insight, but a practical tactical maneuver I always liked. It can help turn a potentially overwhelming situation into a manageable one. Instead of facing dozens or even thousands of people, you’re (sort of) having a personal conversation with one other. Naturally in the course of a speech or presentation, you may focus on numerous different individuals – it’s just a helpful way to cut a large inchoate event down to size.

4) Practice, practice, practice – know your material cold. For me this was by far the most important element – there’s no substitute for thorough knowledge of your material. Get completely comfortable with your content. Facing a large audience is no time to discover you’re really not too sure what you want to say. If you’re especially gifted maybe you can bluff it, but for most of us mortals this is a recipe for implosion. Personally I never liked to memorize things (sounded too wooden), but wanted to clearly understand and think through all aspects of my message. Before a big presentation, when our kids were growing up, I’d spend a fair amount of time practicing quietly in our basement (ironing board as podium), and in the car driving to and from work. This was a classic “competence breeds confidence” scenario — putting in the time made all the difference. My performance could vary from bumbling (if I hadn’t prepared well) to pretty effective and even occasionally entertaining (if I had).

My conclusion: I was not a natural public speaker, but I became a whole lot better than when I started. You can too.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

This definitely rang true for me. Often, when I meet a coworker or somebody who seemed like “a natural”, they would tell me they’ve taken their lumps and prepared for hours. There is little that is natural about speaking in front of audience. Some coworkers I knew did the corporate-sponsored Dale Carnegie program. It helped me a lot to join a local Toastmaster club. I realized that speaking publicly is like exercise. You can only develop by doing the work, but you’ll be surprised at your “6-month Transformation” when you DO the work. I stammered my way through college; nowadays I can speak to audiences of 100 people. It takes work, but it’s worth the personal mastery that comes with it.

Thanks, Andrew – great comment, I’m sure many readers will agree with your observations. Very true that many who seem like “naturals” have had to work hard at it. As you say, like exercise, it’s a skill that can be developed.

I particularly like your recommendation to find your own style. I would much rather watch someone who is presenting his/her best authentic self than someone who seems to be performing what a speaker is “supposed” to look and sound like. Interestingly enough, I have found that acting techniques can help get in touch with a deeper sense of self to bring to public speaking.

Thanks, Maggie, for your thoughtful comment. Completely agree that an acting background can translate very well into the presentation/speaking world. One of the best (and most cerebral) corporate presenters I ever knew had at one time been a stand-up comic…